The camp changed when the hunters returned.
Not in structure.
In temperature.
The cold remained the same—sharp, biting, pressing against exposed skin with familiar cruelty. But beneath it, something warmer stirred. Voices grew louder, laughter hit rougher and deeper, and the smell of blood mingled with fire and grease in a way that spoke of coming abundance.
Two dozen carcasses were dragged into the heart of the camp—frostfangs, thick-furred beasts, smaller winter game. Sera's subordinates worked with brutal efficiency: knives flashed, hide parted, red spilled onto white and steamed into the air. Bones cracked. Meat was sorted. The air filled with the scent of iron and promise.
Tonight would be a feast.
Kel slipped away from the noise.
Not because it bothered him.
Because his body had begun to hum in that way it did when the curse grew interested.
His boots sank into churned snow as he made his way toward the tent given to him. It was simple—a reinforced hide stretched over a timber frame, low and practical. A faint dusting of frost edged the entrance.
He stepped inside.
The wind's bite dropped away at once.
The interior was dim, lit only by a small oil lamp placed near the sleeping furs. The air smelled faintly of tanned hide and woodsmoke. He removed his cloak first, then his gloves, placing them neatly at the side.
His bow, still faintly cold from the hunt, he unstrapped with careful fingers.
The wood had grown familiar already—weight balanced, tension memorized, its line tracing into his muscles like another limb. He set it down where the lamp's warmth would not warp it yet still keep the string from freezing stiff.
Then he sat.
The bedding was not a bed, but a layered arrangement of thick furs and soft hides piled onto woven mats. When he lowered himself onto it, the furs pressed up against his tired muscles with a slow yielding.
The tension he had been ignoring all day announced itself.
His shoulders ached.
His spine throbbed.
His fingers still carried the echo of string-bite.
He let himself lean back, elbows resting behind him, head tilting slightly until he could see the faint shadows the lamp cast upon the tent ceiling.
A breath slipped out of him.
Thin.
Controlled.
But undeniably tired.
I overused it.
The root-bound aura. That microscopic core he had forced into existence beneath the curse. Even now, it pulsed faintly—muted, chained, but resentful of being awakened repeatedly in such short span.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Not to sleep.
Just to allow the darkness to wash his vision clean.
The flap rustled.
Kel opened his eyes.
Landon stepped in, ducking slightly to clear the entrance. Snow shook from his cloak in small, stubborn clumps.
His face was composed as always, but his eyes had softened in that particular way they did when his concern slipped through his restraint.
"Young master," he said quietly, "I've found something."
Kel's eyebrow moved a fraction.
"Trouble, I hope not."
Landon shook his head.
"A hot spring," he replied. "Two kilometers south of the camp. Barbarians use it to recover after long hunts."
A pause.
"Would you like to bathe and relax?"
Kel exhaled through his nose.
The idea of heat—true heat, not the thin warmth of a campfire—suddenly felt almost unreal.
"I am glad you found it," he said. His voice lacked its usual thin humor; exhaustion roughened it. "This hunt… and that little competition…"
He allowed the sentence to trail off.
Landon gave the smallest hint of a smile.
"You look like arrow-strings pulled too tight," he said. "If you do not loosen them, they will snap."
Kel's lips twitched.
"Then I'll go before I fray."
He reached for the towel folded near his pack, along with a simple change of inner clothes. Landon stepped aside, giving him space to gather what he needed.
Kel paused only once—pressing a palm lightly against his ribs. The familiar, thin ache answered, like dull teeth grazing bone.
Then he stood.
"Let's go."
The Walk to the Spring
Night had fully settled by the time they stepped outside. The camp was brighter now—fires burned higher, torches planted in snow casting orange halos across faces and tents. Shadows danced along fur and steel.
The sounds drifted outward as Kel and Landon left the perimeter.
Laughter.
Arguing over meat.
The clatter of cups.
The further they walked, the more those sounds thinned, swallowed by the open field and the low murmur of the wind.
Two kilometers was not far in normal terrain.
In snow, with cold pressing each breath shorter, it stretched.
Their boots left paired lines behind them, leading away from the civilized circle of fire into the darker, quieter sweep of night.
Kel's breath turned to mist.
His muscles complained with each step, but the promise of heat ahead tempered the protest.
They began to see it before they reached it.
Not the spring itself.
The steam.
It rose beyond a cluster of jagged rocks—pale vapors twisting and thinning into the sky, resolute against the cold. Torches were planted along the path, their flames softened by the fog.
Barbarian men walked ahead of them in small groups—laughing, shoving, speaking in low, rough tones. Some carried towels slung over shoulders, others wore nothing but short cloths bound at the hip, unfazed by the surrounding cold.
Kel watched them.
Not envious.
Just studying.
The path split.
Left and right.
To the left, more men walked.
To the right, he glimpsed movement—figures draped in furs, narrower forms.
Women.
Kel's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Why are females going that way?" he asked quietly.
Landon, who had been given explanation already, answered without hesitation.
"I asked one of the barbarians," he said. "He told me there are two springs here. One for men. One for women. Separated by a high stone wall. They say no man tries to look over it."
Kel let out a slow breath.
"Fair enough," he murmured. "Considering how driven these people are by… stimulation, as you put it… dividing the springs by stone is wiser than depending on restraint alone."
Landon gave a small, short chuckle.
"He did not deny their nature," he agreed. "He merely said the wall prevents 'stupidity before battle.'"
Kel hummed softly in response.
They followed the men's path.
The Male Spring
The spring lay in a natural basin, half-ringed by black rock slick with moisture. Steam thickened here, shrouding everything in soft white haze. Torches planted in crevices painted firelight across the mist, turning it into drifting gold veins.
The water itself glowed faintly amber, reflecting those flames, bubbling gently in some places where the heat licked strongest at the surface.
Barbarian men were already in the water, some half-submerged, others leaning against rock, heads tilted back. Their scars—white, red, jagged—caught the light as they shifted. Their laughter, in this place, was deeper, less aggressive. Bodies relaxed. Voices dropped.
Kel halted at the edge for a heartbeat.
Not in shyness.
In analysis.
The air from the spring hit him like a wall—hot, damp, carrying a faint mineral tang.
Hot enough to loosen strain.
Not hot enough to scald.
He removed his cloak, folding it neatly and placing it upon a dry rock. Landon did the same, his movements solid and unhurried. They stripped down to simple cloths at the waist—nothing more. The cold bit at exposed skin for a brief, sharp moment.
Then they stepped into the water.
Heat engulfed his legs first.
Then his hips.
Then, as he lowered himself further, his whole body.
Kel sat.
The water enveloped him like a heavy, burning blanket—not painful, but intensely present. His lungs stuttered once from the shift in temperature, his curse reacting with a brief, sharp pulse.
Then…
A long, slow breath left him.
Steam curled from his mouth.
His muscles, which had felt locked and brittle, began to unwind. Tension that had clung stubbornly to his shoulders and spine eased, as if the heat undid some invisible knots.
He leaned back against warm rock, closing his eyes halfway.
Nearby, Landon settled in with a low exhale, resting his arms along the rock ledge, eyes drifting closed.
For a while, neither spoke.
They listened to the quiet roar of the water.
To the low murmur of the barbarian men around them.
To their own breathing.
Kel opened his eyes again when a group of barbarians waded closer, not in challenge—just curious.
One of them, his chest crisscrossed with old wounds, nodded at Kel.
"Not from ice lands," the man grunted, imperial tongue rough. "Skin too pale. Too… smooth."
Kel's mouth curved faintly.
"My curse does not give it time to scar," he replied dryly.
The man snorted.
"Then curse is jealous," he said. "It wants all the marks for itself."
Barbarian laughter rumbled.
Landon's lips twitched.
Kel inclined his head.
"So it seems."
The barbarians lost interest quickly after that, sinking back into their own conversations about hunts, close calls, future battles. The water carried their voices in and out like waves.
Silence wrapped the space around the two once more.
Conversation in the Steam
Landon opened his eyes eventually, turning his head slightly toward Kel.
"How is it?" he asked. "The heat."
Kel's eyes remained half-lidded.
His answer came slow, each word exhaled with steam.
"Like… breathing after being held under ice too long."
Landon's brow furrowed.
"Does the curse… react?"
Kel considered.
Inside his chest, the thing coiled around his core pulsed slowly, like something forced to stretch against its will. It did not like this softening.
It preferred rigid edges and thin breaths.
He could feel that irritation.
But it wasn't… winning.
Not here.
"It complains," Kel said. "But it doesn't bite harder than usual."
Landon absorbed that.
"Then rest," he said quietly. "As much as it allows."
Kel let his head tilt back until it rested against stone.
Steam curled through his hair, clinging to strands, turning them darker at the tips. Droplets gathered at his lashes.
His shoulders sank lower in the water.
"You did well today," Landon added after a moment.
Kel made a low sound of skepticism.
"I merely moved faster than monsters that didn't know any better."
Landon shook his head minutely.
"You moved faster than a barbarian Chief who has lived half her life in places like this," he said. "And kept your body from breaking despite your curse clawing at your bones."
Kel remained quiet for a moment.
Then spoke softly.
"I only won because I've died before."
Landon turned to look at him more fully.
Kel's eyes were open now, staring at the surface of the water. The reflection was blurred, distorted by tiny currents.
"Pain teaches trajectory," Kel continued. "Fear teaches timing. When you've lost enough times in one world, you begin winning in another by habit alone."
Landon's gaze softened around the edges.
"Even so," he said, "winning against someone like her isn't habit. It's will."
Kel did not argue.
He didn't accept the compliment either.
He let it hang.
Then he closed his eyes again.
The water hummed softly around them.
Somewhere beyond the stone wall, distant female voices echoed lightly. Not shrill. Just different—higher threads woven into the low rumble of male sound.
Kel spoke again, almost idly.
"It is strange."
Landon's head tilted.
"What is?"
"That in this place," Kel murmured, "we sit in water older than any of us, heated by the bones of the earth… and yet tomorrow, that same earth might swallow us before we ever see the lake we're chasing."
Landon regarded him quietly.
"Do you regret coming?" he asked.
Kel's lips curved.
This time, it was closer to a smile.
Tired.
But real.
"No," he said. "If I must die, I prefer to choose the direction I fall."
The steam swallowed those words, turning them into ghosts drifting toward the unseen ceiling.
They stayed until the heat began to blur the edges of their thoughts. Until their limbs felt almost loose enough to forget the weight they carried.
When Kel finally stood, the air outside the water slapped against his damp skin with brutal chill, but his core had been warmed enough that the shock did not cut as deeply as it once would have.
He dried off with the towel, steam still curling from his shoulders, and dressed in fresh inner clothes. His movements, though still careful, carried less tension.
Landon followed, equally methodical.
As they stepped away from the springs and began the walk back toward the camp, the night felt less oppressive.
The cold still gnawed.
The sky still hung heavy.
The mountains ahead still waited like patient executioners.
But for the first time since leaving the Rosenfeld estate, Kel's body did not feel like a cage shrinking around his will.
It felt—
Not free.
But less tight.
The curse still coiled within him.
But tonight, the warmth had reminded it that he was not merely a vessel to be drained.
He could be refilled.
Even if only for a few hours at a time.
He glanced at Landon.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For finding this place."
Landon's answer was simple.
Sincere.
"You still need to reach that lake, young master," he said. "Until then, anything that keeps you walking… I will find."
Kel's eyes turned toward the dark outline of the mountains.
Steam still clung faintly to his hair.
His breath rose in pale traces.
"Then," he murmured, "let's keep walking."
Snow accepted their steps.
The camp's firelight grew clearer ahead.
And somewhere deep inside that cursed body—
for this night alone—
the pain loosened its grip just enough for sleep to look less like surrender…
and more like preparation.